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Wednesday, August 2, 2017

The Business of Writing: Avoiding Author Intrusion

By: Linda RohrboughI think Jerry Jenkins has
it right when he says Christian authors are the worst about author intrusion.
In the Christian world, they call it being “preachy.” But I’ve seen plenty of
liberal “preachy.”

Author intrusion comes
in a couple of forms. One is the author just flat telling the reader, either
through dialog on the part of a character or in narrative, how the reader
should think. Note I used the word “should.” In 12-Step groups, they call it
“should-ing on yourself."

The other is just boring
the reader with stuff they’ve already figured out.

Either form of author
intrusion will kill the reader’s interest in your work deader than a door nail.
And this can produce the worst possible outcome for you as an author – which is
readers who don’t finish your book. Readers who don’t finish books don’t buy
another book by that author and they don’t talk about or refer those books to
other readers.

Author intrusion is the opposite
from authors who say they want to write but they don’t have anything to say.
Some authors want to write because they want to fix people. They want everyone
to see it their way. And to make sure that happens, they are going to not only
show the reader what happened, they’re going to tell the reader how to think
about it.

Clearly, it’s important
to have something to say. And you need to figure out what that is. But this is
a show, not tell, lesson.

The way you change
someone’s mind isn’t by brow beating them with an idea. It’s by creating an
emotional response. Emotion is the ticket and you don’t get emotion through
intellect. You get it through experience.

The rule of thumb is
this: if you notice the author behind the story, then it’s probably author
intrusion.

The risk around giving
you an example is most concepts that people get “preachy” around are
controversial. But I’m going to take the risk. The best example I can think of
is Jerry Jenkins told the story about how he tipped a black janitor in front of
his colleagues at an event he was attending. Later, that janitor took him aside
privately and asked Jerry if he would have tipped him if he’d been white. Jerry
said that incident changed his viewpoint.

Now, author intrusion
would be for me as the author or have a character, such as Jerry or the
janitor, go into a discourse about Jerry’s motives, how his viewpoint changed,
society in general, or the subtleties of prejudice. But if you learn to
trust your reader, you can be confident the reader will get the point from the
story and the emotional impact it carries. The reader doesn’t need the author
to tell them how to think. And if they do, then you as the author haven’t done
your job, and you need to go back and rework the story.

Author intrusion is one
of those places where it’s hard to see the forest for the trees in your own
work. As always, it’s good to develop a small network of people you trust to
look over your manuscript. But if you don’t have your network handy, the red flag
looking for author intrusion in my own work is I ask myself, do I feel a sense
of anxiety that the reader isn’t going to “get it?” Because if I do, that’s
usually the first sign that I’m getting ready to stick my toes, or maybe my
whole foot, into author intrusion.

The bottom line is this: learn to tell the story, then learn to trust your reader.

About the Author:Linda Rohrbough has been writing since 1989, and has more than 5,000 articles and seven books to her credit, along with writing for television, and seven national awards for her fiction and non-fiction. Find her on Facebook as "Linda Rohrbough - Author" or visit her website: www.LindaRohrbough.com.

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